Today, computing devices such as personal computers, laptop computers, personal digital assistants, mobile devices, tablets, cell-phones, etc., are routinely used at work, home, and everywhere in-between. Computing devices advantageously enable the use of application specific software, file sharing, the creation of electronic documents, and electronic communication and commerce through the Internet and other computer networks. Typically, each computing device has a storage peripheral such as a disk drive. A huge market exists for disk drives for computing devices such as laptop computers, desktop computers, mobile computers, mobile devices, server computers, etc.
Disk drives typically comprise a disk and a head connected to a distal end of an actuator arm which is rotated by a pivot by a voice coil motor (VCM) to position the head radially over the disk. The disk typically comprises a plurality of radially spaced, concentric tracks for recording user data sectors and servo sectors. The servo sectors typically comprise head positioning information (e.g., a track address) which is read by the head and processed by a servo control system to control the velocity of the actuator arm as it seeks from track to track. Data is typically written to the disk by modulating a write current in an inductive coil to record magnetic transitions onto the disk surface. During readback, the magnetic transitions are sensed by a read element (e.g., a magnetoresistive element) and the resulting read signal demodulated by a suitable read channel.
To be competitive in the disk drive market, a disk drive should be relatively inexpensive and should embody a design that is adaptive for low-cost mass production, while at the same time provide high data storage capacity, provide rapid access to data, and meet ever decreasing size requirements. Satisfying these competing restraints of low-cost, high data storage capacity, rapid access to data, and decreasing size, requires innovation in each of the numerous components of the disk drive and the methods of assembly.
As an example, many laptop computer and mobile device developers are requiring that disk drives be of decreased size to meet customer demands for thin, light weight, and very portable computing devices. Disk drive manufacturers currently manufacture both the mechanical/electro-mechanical components associated with the disk drive (e.g., the disks, the heads, the actuator arms, etc., often termed the hard disk drive assembly (HDA)), as well as the computing components (e.g., the processor, the servo controller, the read/write channel, etc.) as part of a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA), that is attached to the HDA create the complete disk drive. The complete disk drive is then sent onto the computing device developer for assembly with their computing device.